Schafer Downplays Kickstarter's Threat To Publishers

'Oh, Two Million Dollars, That's Cute!"

Double Fine's recent Kickstarter initiative has raised over two million dollars to fund their mysterious adventure game, and has caused many pundits and gamers to wonder whether the system could be a viable alternative to using traditional publishers. However, Tim Schafer has spoken out to suggest that the developer/publisher relationship is still a vital part of the industry, and that the likes of EA and Activision have nothing to worry about.

Speaking to RPS, Schafer was keen to point out that Double Fine are still developing numerous games in conjunction with major publishers, and that they have nothing to fear from Double Fine's potential precedent. As much as anything, the Kickstarter war chest pales in comparison to the enormous marketing, R&D and development budgets that the biggest players can bring to the table.

[Double Fine Adventure] is just one of our projects.

We have four teams here. Those other teams are still out there pitching new games to publishers, and their response has always been, 'Oh that's great - congratulations on that. Now let's talk about games like we always have.'

I don't think any publishers are quaking in their boots - they're like, 'Oh, two million dollars, that's cute! That's the marketing budget for the little game I'm working on.' It's not a big amount of money for them. It's a big amount of money for us though.

Regardless, we hope that Kickstarter will continue to provide smaller Indie outfits with a means of securing much-needed funding... as well as providing a perfect jumping off point for developers to consider new ways of creating their games outside of the traditional publisher relationship. We'll keep you posted about Double Fine Adventure as we hear more.